Wednesday, February 8, 2017

"A golden triangle can be split into
a golden triangle and a golden gnomon.
The same is true for a golden gnomon.
A golden gnomon and a golden triangle
with their equal sides matching each other
in length are also referred to as the obtuse
and acute Robinson triangles.

The story deals with “one Gideon Summerfield, deceased.” Summerfield, a former tutor at (the fictional) St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge University, “is about to become the recipient of the Waymark prize. This prize is awarded in Mathematics and has the same prestige as the Nobel. Summerfield had a rather lackluster career at St. Agatha’s, with the exception of one remarkable result that he obtained. It is for this result that he is being awarded the prize, albeit posthumously.” Someone is apparently trying to prevent a biography of Summerfield from being published.

The following page contains a critical part of the solution to the mystery:

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“What I saw before me was the critic-in-chief of The New York Times saying: In looking at a painting today, ‘to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial.’ I read it again. It didn’t say ‘something helpful’ or ‘enriching’ or even ‘extremely valuable.’ No, the word was crucial….”

The story deals with “one Gideon Summerfield, deceased.” Summerfield, a former tutor at (the fictional) St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge University, “is about to become the recipient of the Waymark prize. This prize is awarded in Mathematics and has the same prestige as the Nobel. Summerfield had a rather lackluster career at St. Agatha’s, with the exception of one remarkable result that he obtained. It is for this result that he is being awarded the prize, albeit posthumously.” Someone is apparently trying to prevent a biography of Summerfield from being published.

The following page containsa critical part of the solution to the mystery:

“Dorothy Sayers makes a great deal of sense when she points out in her highly instructive and readable book The Mind of the Maker that ‘to complain that man measures God by his own measure is a waste of time; man measures everything by his own experience; he has no other yardstick.'”

“The mathematics of tilings and quilting play background
roles in this mystery in which a graduate student attempts
to write a biography of the (fictitious) mathematician
Gideon Summerfield. Summerfield is about to posthumously
receive the prestigious (and, I should point out, also fictitious)
Waymark Prize in mathematics…but it soon becomes clear
that someone with evil intentions does not want the student’s
book to be published!

By all accounts this is a well written mystery…the second by
the author with college nurse Imogen Quy playing the role of
the detective.”— Mathematical Fiction by Alex Kasman,
College of Charleston